Editorial | Integrity Commission’s new chair

Based on their résumés and reputations, Sir Patrick Allen, the governor general, could hardly have made better choices than Carol Lawrence-Beswick and Brian Wynter to fill the vacancies in the Integrity Commission (IC).

Ms Lawrence-Beswick, a retired justice of the Supreme Court, is the commission’s new chairman, succeeding Seymour Panton, a former president of that court, who did not seek reappointment. Mr Wynter is a former investment banker and governor of the Bank of Jamaica, the island’s central bank. He has replaced Eric Crawford, a former auditor, who also did not seek to extend his term.

Justice Lawrence-Beswick and Mr Wynter are both considered to be of keen intellect and even temper, which are important assets for the assignments they have agreed to undertake. However, they, especially Justice Lawrence-Beswick, should know that they will be under close scrutiny, especially with respect to how they interpret their mandates, given the tumult of recent years as government legislators attempt to erode public confidence in the institution, as well as make suggestions to neuter the IC.

At the same time, the advent of Messrs Lawrence-Beswick and Wynter may be an opportunity for a reset of the relationship between the Government and the commission, which, however, cannot be at the expense of the IC aggressively doing its job of being Jamaica’s primary anti-corruption watchdog.

PREMISE OF TRANSPARENCY

The agency must also not retreat from its premise of transparency. Instead, it must continue to push for greater urgency.

Launched in 2018, the IC subsumed three previous bodies – two commissions that separately policed the income, assets and liabilities of legislators and public officials, as well as the contractor general, whose job was to ensure that government contracts were legally and fairly awarded and executed. Unlike the old agencies, the IC, through its own director of corruption prosecution (subject to the constitutional power of the director of public prosecutions (DPP) to intervene in any criminal case), has the authority to prosecute beaches of the act and certain accusations of corruption.

It is notable that the Integrity Commission Act, which was tabled during a People’s National Party (PNP) administration, was passed in 2017 with strong bipartisan support during a Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government.

However, over the last two years, the fairness and integrity of the IC has been consistently attacked by legislators of the governing party, who claim their members have been unduly targeted by the commission.

Their discontent with the IC started to seep out over its failure to certify Prime Minister Andrew Holness’ income, assets and liabilities filing for 2021 and 2022, and was compounded over its handling of a report of an investigation in Dr Holness’ conduct in the award of contracts while he was education minister in the 2000s.

A report by the IC director of investigation, recommending that the commission’s prosecutor charge the prime minister for contracts awarded to a friend and business colleague for government-financed work in his parliamentary constituency, was tabled in Parliament one afternoon. But within 24 hours, the IC sent to Parliament a second report by the prosecutor declining those recommendations, saying that the charges would not be sustained in a trial. While Dr Holness had argued that he had merely named someone who could possibly provide the service, the IC’s prosecutor noted that at the time of the incident, rules were not in place for awarding contracts via the Constituency Development Fund.

DELIBERATE EFFORT TO SMEAR

The JLP saw the IC’s clumsy handling of reports as a deliberate effort to smear Dr Holness. The party’s members of parliament (MPs) were further infuriated over a subsequent IC report that sharply criticised the former national security minister, Robert Montague, for exercising his power to allow firearm licences of several persons against whom investigators had found “adverse traces”.

Then there was the IC’s report last year that recommended that the Financial Investigations Division conduct investigations into the prime minister’s business affairs, which it said was necessary before it could make a final determination on his integrity declarations. Dr Holness is challenging that report in court.

Government MPs have used a review of the legislation establishing the IC to propose a diminution of its independence by bringing it more firmly under the control of politicians.

These are only a few of the many fraught issues that immediately confront the IC and its new chairman. For instance, the contracts of several of its top officials, including the executive director, Greg Christie, and the director of investigation, Kevon Stephenson, expire within the next few months. Both men, like Justice Panton, will have faced heavy criticisms.

If they are inclined to stay in the jobs, the five commissioners will have to decide whether they want them. That decision should be the outcome of objective analysis, not whim or outside pressure.

Institutions often reflect the personalities of those who lead them. Justice Panton was tough and unflinching – and by the book. Under his leadership, the IC adopted the same posture.

We do not expect Justice Lawrence-Beswick to entirely mirror the approach of her predecessor. She will bring her own style to the commission.

But whatever that style is, she has to be vigilant to any attempt by politicians, of whatever stripe, to downgrade the IC and, within the confines of the law and decorum, be transparent about its work. Her posture cannot be the same as when she sat on the bench.